G
Gary
Guest
How familiar the phrase is. No Lodge is ever opened or closed, in due form, without using it. Yet how few know how old it is, much less what a deep meaning it has in it. As far back as we can go in the annals of the Craft we find this old phrase. Its form betrays its age. The word MOTE is an Old English word with Indo-European roots meaning may, must, or might and is derived from an anomalous verb, MOTAN.
Chaucer uses the exact phrase in the same sense in which we use it, meaning "So May It Be." In context of the early Masonic expression "so mote it be", it implied both a wish for and a hope of realizing God's will.
Lines 654-55 of the Halliwell Manuscript (also known as the Regius Manuscript)—"A Poem of Moral Duties" for stonemasons, written around 1400 (more accurately 1320 A.D.) is the oldest document of the Craft —reads: "Grante me the blysse withoute ende; Amen! amen! so mot hyt be!", which translates as: "Grant me the bliss without end; Amen! Amen! so mote it be!" , just as we use it today.
The last lines, 793-94, read: "Amen! amen! so mot hyt be!; Say we so all per charyté", which translates as: "Amen! Amen! so mote it be! ; So say we all for charity."
The phrase was cited in James Anderson's "The Constitutions of the Free-Masons" (1723) as a quote from an unidentified mid-fifteenth century manuscript, also found "in another manuscript more ancient." (page 31, 1734 edition)
As everyone knows, it is the Masonic form of the ancient AMEN which echoes through the ages, gathering meaning and music as it goes until it is one of the richest and most haunting of words. At first only a sign of assent, on the part either of an individual or of an assembly, to words of prayer or praise, it has become to stand as a sentinel at the gateway of silence.
When we have uttered all that we can utter, and our poor words seem like ripples on the bosom of the unspoken, somehow this familiar phrase gathers up all that is left - our dumb yearnings, our deepest longings - and bears them aloft to One who understands. In some strange way it seems to speak for us into the very ear of God the things for which words were never made.
So, naturally, it has a place of honor among us. At the marriage Altar it speaks its blessing as young love walks toward the bliss or sorrow of hidden years. It stands beside the cradle when we dedicate our little ones to the Holy life, mingling its benediction with our vows. At the grave side it utters its sad response to the shadowy AMEN which death pronounces over our friends.
When, in our turn, we see the end of the road, and would make a last will and testament, leaving our earnings and savings to those whom we love, the old legal phrase asks us to repeat after it: "In The Name Of God, AMEN." And with us, as with Gerontius in his Dream, the last word we hear when the voices of earth grow faint and the silence of God covers us, is the old AMEN, So Mote It Be.
How impressively it echoes through the Volume of Sacred Law. We hear it in the Psalms, as chorus answers to chorus, where it is sometimes reduplicated for emphasis.
In the talks of Jesus with his friends it has a striking use, hidden in the English version. The oft-repeated phrase, "Verily, Verily I Say Unto You," if rightly translated means, AMEN, AMEN, I say unto you." Later, in the Epistles of Paul, the word AMEN becomes the name of Christ, who is the AMEN of God to the faith of man.
So, too, in the Lodge, at opening, at closing, and in the hour of initiation. No Mason ever enters upon any great or important undertaking without invoking the blessing of Deity. And he ends his prayer with the old phrase, "So Mote It Be." Which is another way of saying: "The Will Of God Be Done." Or, whatever be the answer of God to his prayer: "So Be It - because it is wise and right.
What, then, is the meaning of this old phrase, so interwoven with all our Masonic lore, simple, tender, haunting? It has two meanings for us everywhere, in the Church, or in the Lodge. First, it is assent of man to the way and Will Of God; assent to His Commands; assent to His Providence, even when a tender, terrible stroke of death takes from us one much loved and leaves us forlorn.
Still, somehow, we must say:" So it is; so be it. He is a wise man, a brave man; who, baffled by the woes of life, when disaster follows fast and follows faster, can nevertheless accept his lot as a part of the Will of God and say, though it may almost choke him to say it: "So Mote It Be." It is not blind submission, nor dumb resignation, but a wise reconciliation to the Will of the Eternal.
The other meaning of the phrase is even more wonderful; it is the assent of God to the aspiration of man. Man can bear so much - anything, perhaps - if he feels that God knows, cares and feels for him and with him. If God says Amen, So it is, to our faith and hope and love; it links our perplexed meanings, and helps us to see, however dimly, or in a glass darkly, that there is a wise and good purpose in life, despite its sorrow and suffering, and that we are not at the mercy of Fate or the whim of Chance.
The place of Prayer in Masonry is not perfunctory. It is not a mere matter of form and rote. It is vital and profound. As a man enters the Lodge as an initiate, prayer is offered for him, to God, in whom he puts his trust. Later, in a crisis of his initiation, he must pray for himself, orally or mentally as his heart may elect. It is not just a ceremony; it is basic in the faith and spirit of Masonry. Still later, in a scene which no Mason ever forgets, when the shadow is darkest, and the most precious thing a Mason can desire or seek seems lost, in the perplexity and despair of the Lodge, a prayer is offered. As recorded in our Monitors, it is a mosaic of Bible words, in which the grim facts of life and death are set forth in stark reality, and appeal is made to the pity and light of God.
Prayer is truly a great thing. In doing so, we place ourselves in the very hands of God as all must do in the end. Trusting His Will and way, following where no path is into the soft and fascinating darkness which men call death. And the response of the Lodge to that prayer, as to all others offered at its Altar, is the old, challenging phrase, "So Mote It Be!"
Chaucer uses the exact phrase in the same sense in which we use it, meaning "So May It Be." In context of the early Masonic expression "so mote it be", it implied both a wish for and a hope of realizing God's will.
Lines 654-55 of the Halliwell Manuscript (also known as the Regius Manuscript)—"A Poem of Moral Duties" for stonemasons, written around 1400 (more accurately 1320 A.D.) is the oldest document of the Craft —reads: "Grante me the blysse withoute ende; Amen! amen! so mot hyt be!", which translates as: "Grant me the bliss without end; Amen! Amen! so mote it be!" , just as we use it today.
The last lines, 793-94, read: "Amen! amen! so mot hyt be!; Say we so all per charyté", which translates as: "Amen! Amen! so mote it be! ; So say we all for charity."
The phrase was cited in James Anderson's "The Constitutions of the Free-Masons" (1723) as a quote from an unidentified mid-fifteenth century manuscript, also found "in another manuscript more ancient." (page 31, 1734 edition)
As everyone knows, it is the Masonic form of the ancient AMEN which echoes through the ages, gathering meaning and music as it goes until it is one of the richest and most haunting of words. At first only a sign of assent, on the part either of an individual or of an assembly, to words of prayer or praise, it has become to stand as a sentinel at the gateway of silence.
When we have uttered all that we can utter, and our poor words seem like ripples on the bosom of the unspoken, somehow this familiar phrase gathers up all that is left - our dumb yearnings, our deepest longings - and bears them aloft to One who understands. In some strange way it seems to speak for us into the very ear of God the things for which words were never made.
So, naturally, it has a place of honor among us. At the marriage Altar it speaks its blessing as young love walks toward the bliss or sorrow of hidden years. It stands beside the cradle when we dedicate our little ones to the Holy life, mingling its benediction with our vows. At the grave side it utters its sad response to the shadowy AMEN which death pronounces over our friends.
When, in our turn, we see the end of the road, and would make a last will and testament, leaving our earnings and savings to those whom we love, the old legal phrase asks us to repeat after it: "In The Name Of God, AMEN." And with us, as with Gerontius in his Dream, the last word we hear when the voices of earth grow faint and the silence of God covers us, is the old AMEN, So Mote It Be.
How impressively it echoes through the Volume of Sacred Law. We hear it in the Psalms, as chorus answers to chorus, where it is sometimes reduplicated for emphasis.
In the talks of Jesus with his friends it has a striking use, hidden in the English version. The oft-repeated phrase, "Verily, Verily I Say Unto You," if rightly translated means, AMEN, AMEN, I say unto you." Later, in the Epistles of Paul, the word AMEN becomes the name of Christ, who is the AMEN of God to the faith of man.
So, too, in the Lodge, at opening, at closing, and in the hour of initiation. No Mason ever enters upon any great or important undertaking without invoking the blessing of Deity. And he ends his prayer with the old phrase, "So Mote It Be." Which is another way of saying: "The Will Of God Be Done." Or, whatever be the answer of God to his prayer: "So Be It - because it is wise and right.
What, then, is the meaning of this old phrase, so interwoven with all our Masonic lore, simple, tender, haunting? It has two meanings for us everywhere, in the Church, or in the Lodge. First, it is assent of man to the way and Will Of God; assent to His Commands; assent to His Providence, even when a tender, terrible stroke of death takes from us one much loved and leaves us forlorn.
Still, somehow, we must say:" So it is; so be it. He is a wise man, a brave man; who, baffled by the woes of life, when disaster follows fast and follows faster, can nevertheless accept his lot as a part of the Will of God and say, though it may almost choke him to say it: "So Mote It Be." It is not blind submission, nor dumb resignation, but a wise reconciliation to the Will of the Eternal.
The other meaning of the phrase is even more wonderful; it is the assent of God to the aspiration of man. Man can bear so much - anything, perhaps - if he feels that God knows, cares and feels for him and with him. If God says Amen, So it is, to our faith and hope and love; it links our perplexed meanings, and helps us to see, however dimly, or in a glass darkly, that there is a wise and good purpose in life, despite its sorrow and suffering, and that we are not at the mercy of Fate or the whim of Chance.
The place of Prayer in Masonry is not perfunctory. It is not a mere matter of form and rote. It is vital and profound. As a man enters the Lodge as an initiate, prayer is offered for him, to God, in whom he puts his trust. Later, in a crisis of his initiation, he must pray for himself, orally or mentally as his heart may elect. It is not just a ceremony; it is basic in the faith and spirit of Masonry. Still later, in a scene which no Mason ever forgets, when the shadow is darkest, and the most precious thing a Mason can desire or seek seems lost, in the perplexity and despair of the Lodge, a prayer is offered. As recorded in our Monitors, it is a mosaic of Bible words, in which the grim facts of life and death are set forth in stark reality, and appeal is made to the pity and light of God.
Prayer is truly a great thing. In doing so, we place ourselves in the very hands of God as all must do in the end. Trusting His Will and way, following where no path is into the soft and fascinating darkness which men call death. And the response of the Lodge to that prayer, as to all others offered at its Altar, is the old, challenging phrase, "So Mote It Be!"
